2009 Top Speed Challenge - The 1-Miler

1/19Bobby Davis brought a real '67 Coronet R/T with a junker 440 and ran 132.411 mph with a stock auto trans and 2.93:1 gears in the 8 3/4 rearend. The car had been drag-raced when new, then went to a junkyard, then sat in the Davis family yard for 10 years before they decided they needed a piece of Maxton.

It's hard to believe this is the fifth straight year of the HOT ROD Top Speed Challenge held in conjunction with the East Coast Timing Association's season-opening April event. What's even more surprising is that five years represents one third of the ECTA's history.

At this year's awards banquet, we were treated to a presentation from Tom Sarda, cofounder of the ECTA along with the late John Beckett. He told the story of becoming weary of having to drive west for racing at Bonneville, especially one year when flooding of the Mississippi left no convenient way to get from the East Coast to the fabled Salt Flats. Tom and John began hunting for a place to create land speed racing closer to home. That resulted in races at Spence Air Base in Moultrie, Georgia, but the racers' work on the old WWII airbase there backfired: Soon, the town wanted to use it once again as a runway. The ECTA was out.

Next, another runway was found in Weddington, North Carolina. After all the clearances were obtained from the city managers, a race date was set and cars were registered. A week before the event in Weddington, the mayor called Tom with a simple message: "Not at my airport." Nonnegotiable, regardless of what had previously been promised. The event was canceled at the last second.

Finally, the ECTA landed at what seems to be its permanent home on yet another abandoned WWII base nearby Maxton, North Carolina. Though the current military training situation poses some threat to the runoff portion of the track, negotiations have been able to keep the ECTA in action.

That action, of course, is a standing-mile land speed contest that's now held five times a year. At the HRM event, we show up mostly just to encourage grassroots motorsports that anyone can do with any car, but we also award jackets for the fastest times in the two street-legal categories: Real Street for single-four-barrel cars and Super Street for anything injected or supercharged. This year had the lowest turnout of real contenders for those prizes but the largest-ever show of racers and spectators. With last year being nearly a rainout, we were glad to once again have the chance to check out the huge variety of hardware that turns up at Maxton for one of the most hospitable motorsports anywhere.

For info on next year's Top Speed Challenge or to learn how to participate or volunteer at any of the other ECTA events at Maxton, see www.ecta-lsr.com.

19/19

Maxton UpgradesWhen the ECTA first came to Maxton, the track needed literally tons of debris cleared from the old, '40s concrete. Even since we've been attending races there for the last seven years, we've watched it continually improve with upgrades that include smoother concrete, a shutdown area that is now paved rather than dirt, cleared trees that were a hazard, and even a fresh registration trailer. The latest improvement is this new timing tower, which seems to finally make the Monster Mile a permanent and professional venue for land speed racing.